I think I’ve blogged about this before, but it bears repeating: I understand our relationship to God a lot better, now that I have a child myself.

The most striking example is obedience. I get really frustrated when my son insists on doing something his way, even after I’ve just told him not to. The thing that’s so annoying is that (of course) the reason I warned him about whatever he’s planning on doing, is to help him avoid some calamity he doesn’t anticipate. (It could be something serious, like me telling him to stop jumping in the bathtub, or something trivial, like me telling him we should put the electric toothbrush in his mouth before turning it on.)

Naturally, my son gets really mad at me and thinks I’m drunk on a power trip, issuing completely arbitrary commands. As a matter of principle, he goes ahead and does it his way, and suffers the outcome I had warned about. And obviously, I physically intervene to prevent him from “learning the hard way” about something really bad, like running in the street.

I think the connection between these points and our relationship with the God of the Bible is clear enough that I don’t have to spell it out.